San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1887-08-27


clad in bis dressing gown and slippers during
his talk with the king of the Belgians and
sovereign of the Congo free state Besides,
there was none Of the usual political fuss
about the business The interview having
been arranged only few minutes before
hand, there had been no time for journalists
to horrify Europe by speculations about the
threatening alliance or the terrific wars
which would result from the tete a tete; and
the emperors of Russia, Austria and Ger
many must have Immediately understood
how convenient it would be If they could
visit each other every year in the same man.
ner, inste3d of dragging all Europe's
thoughts NJ d fears with them to Kremsier
or Skierneu icke. Furthermore, the CONVEX
satlon having gone on in a tone sufficiently
loud to be overheard, any slight anxiety the
meeting may have caused to the diplomatic
world was allayed within an hour, when il
became known that there had been no dark
scheming Of king and president, and i'm fact
nothing more than such innocent talk as the
following:
"How is the weather on your sider "Rain-
ing" "Ohi the suns out here.n "What O
fine thing the telephone Isl" Certainly;
hear your majesty perfectly we'll" "And I
catch the sound of fly buzzing around your
excellency's ears"
The beginning which the Paris Brussels tele-
phone made when it was opened to the public,
twenty-three days later, caused many super.
stitious folks to turn pale. For, strange to
say, the first communication which the wires
conveyed was the news of terrible calamity;
the earthquake in the south of France and
the Riviera, by which so many thousands of
houses were wrecked and so many hundreds
OF lives lost However, outsiders only looked
upon the circumstance as ominous The
greater number Of people using the interna-
tional telephone. so far, are stockholders and
journalists, a set Of practical persons whose
minds are generally pretty free from super
stition, and who are too busy to be given to
disagreeable broodings. So the telephone has
escaped the fate Of these messengers who,
when they bore evil news to the eastern
potentates, had their unlucky heads chopped
off for the trouble they gave Far from
suffering any punishment, the Franco Belgian
telephone is increasing its popularity every
day, in Belgium at least.
One of its first effects has been to give an
extraordinary impulse to gambling on the
stock exchange. or course, our quotations
have at all times been swayed to great ex.
tent blythe prices of the Paris bourse. Now
the French funds every minute, you may
conceive the advantage which all stock
brokers and bankers, availing themselves OF
this means of communications are able to
secure in their dealings 1t is just as though
a certain number of betting men in New
York were kept posted every half second as
to the movements Of the competitors for the
EPSON Derby while the Derby was being
run. Brussels gamblers now follow the quo
tation race on the Paris bourse yard per yard,
inch per inch. One after another come and
closet themselves in the tiny Enclosure where
the telephone apparatus is secluded within
wadded walls, between which the sound and
the person catching 1t are equally stihed, for
the whole of the cabin, including the stool to
sit upon, and the desk to lean and write upon,
covers less than a square yard of space In
few minutes purple, perspiring faces and
hasty feet emerge from the closet the owners
of said faces and feet holding at their pencils
end a bit of yet unpublished news which NAV
mean thousands of dollars won or lost within
the next minute or two.
On a journalistic enterprise this interna-
tional telephone exercises perhaps a greater
influence still. In order to grasp the facts,
we must first bear in mind that competition
of all kinds, financial, commercial or literary,
is invariably much keener in small places
than in large ones. In his description of an
election day at Eatanswill, Charles Dickens
shows that political feeling ran very much
higher in that nutshell of a town than in huge
London. So it may be said that the race for
money, for success, for news, is very much
hvelier in Brussels than in London or Paris
The promptncss with which the Belgian CAPT.
tai awaited itself of the inland telephone Is a
case in point. At the present hour the num-
Der of persons using the telephone in Paris Is
above 5000; it is the same in London and
1900 in Brussels. OF course, these figures
will appear ridiculously small in such a prog
ress hunting part of the world as America.
have read somewhere of there being $50 900
telephones at work throughout the United
States, and that the citizens of Guayaqutl,
Ecuador, have completed their telephone
communications before thinking Of paving
their streets. But then we are not concerned
at present with the New World our compare
son is between the countries Of the Old
World, and it shows Belgium to be more en-
terprSing and fond of useful novelty than
any of its great neighbors.
As the above figures show, the proportion
of people employing the telephone in London
is hardly one out Of 700; in Paris one out Of
every 500, and in Brussels, where the tele-
phone should be very much less requisite, see
ing that the distances are greatly shorter, it
is one out of every 200 Indeed, the Belgians
have been in such hot haste to enjoy the
fruits of Edison's invention that they have
not wasted time, as other countries have, in
continuing a telephone of their own; they
adapted EdiSon's to their wants just as it was,
so much so in fact that the Edison company,
established in London, is at this very moment
prosecuting the Belgian one for counterfeit
before five different Belgian courts: Brussels,
Liege, Namur, Antwerp and Louvain.-Brus
sells Cor. Kansas City Journal
Dinturasnnn Gnuarnnant